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MGA Entertainment
MGA Entertainment (Micro-Games America Entertainment) is a manufacturer of children's toys and entertainment products founded in 1997. Its products include the Bratz fashion doll line and Yummi-Land. MGA is headquartered at 16300 Roscoe Boulevard in the Lake Balboa area of the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, California, United States.12 Products Introduced in 2001, Bratz is MGA's most successful product line, with various spin-offs from the original teenage dolls, including miniature versions (Lil' Bratz), kid versions (Bratz Kidz) baby dolls (Bratz Babyz), pets (Bratz Petz), tiny baby dolls with pets (Lil Angelz), two feature films (Bratz: The Movie and Bratz Girls Really Rock) and numerous DVDs and soundtracks. The Kidz and Lil Angelz have been renamed to "4*Ever" due to a lawsuit. In 2000, MGA Entertainment made an audio game called Super Click-It which is similar to the Bop It line of audio games. Yummi-Land is a doll franchise introduced in 2006. There was an accompanying movie entitled Betsy Bubblegum's Journey through Yummi-Land. The franchise includes a toy line of the character's friends and pets. The Yummi-Land Soda Pop Girls were introduced in 2006 and include the "Soda Pop Girls," "Creme Soda Pop Girls," "Candy Pop Girls," "Flower Pop Girls," "Ice Cream Pop Girls," "Smoothie Pop Girls," "Sundae Pop Girls," and the Holiday special edition doll "Paris Peppermint Creme" and also the "Birthday Pop Girls." "My ePets" is a plush animal toy franchise also launched in 2006. Each plush comes with a code to activate an online version of the animal on the [1] interactive web site. Users play games, care for their pets, and more. In 2009, a new doll line named Moxie Girlz was introduced. These Moxie girlz are similar, but legally distinct, from the Bratz line of dolls. This is to circumvent the ruling from the lawsuit described below. In 2010, MGA Entertainment came out with a line of Dolls called Lalaloopsy. The dolls are a modern twist on rag dolls, with a tagline of "Sew Magical, Sew Cute". On December 7, 2010, Lalaloopsy had the People's Play Award for large dolls. MGA Entertainment also owns Little Tikes (www.littletikes.com), a popular infant, pre-school and young child toy line. MGA Entertainment is the creator of Bratz, Moxie Girlz, Moxie Teenz, BFC, Ink., Rescue Pets, My e-Pets, Legend of Nara and Lalaloopsy. Lawsuit On July 17, 2008, the U.S. District Court in Riverside ruled against MGA Entertainment and for Mattel Inc. in a battle over the creation rights of the Bratz doll line. The jury in the case determined that Carter Bryant, creator of the Bratz doll line, had violated his exclusivity contract and had designed the dolls while he was still working at Mattel. Mattel was awarded $100 million US in damages, far less than the $1 billion they were seeking. 3 On December 3, 2008, U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson granted an injunction requested by Mattel, which effectively banned MGA from manufacturing and selling Bratz dolls, though he allowed MGA to continue selling Bratz through the end of the 2008 holiday season.4 Larson determined that all of MGA's Bratz produced from 2001 through 2008, except for the Kidz and Lil Angelz lines, infringed on Mattel's intellectual property. Larson allowed MGA to continue to manufacture the Kidz and Lil Angelz lines, provided that they not be promoted under the Bratz brand. He also stipulated that MGA must, at their own cost, remove all Bratz merchandise from retailers' shelves, reimburse retailers for said merchandise, and turn all recalled product over to Mattel for disposal. In addition, MGA was to destroy all marketing materials, molds, and other materials that had been used in the manufacture and sale of Bratz. 5 MGA immediately filed for a permanent stay of the injunction and, on February 11, 2009, was granted a stay through at least the end of 2009. On December 10, 2009, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit granted MGA an immediate stay of the injunction, effectively halting the recall of Bratz product, which was to have begun on January 21, 2010. In their initial ruling, the Court found Larson's previous ruling to be unusually "draconian," questioned why Mattel had simply been handed ownership of the entire franchise rather than be awarded a stake in the ownership of the franchise or a share of the royalties from future Bratz sales, and ordered MGA and Mattel into mediation.